Shropshire and Staffordshire National Trust Volunteers

For this week at the beginning of June, a message from NT Regional Head, Paul Forecast:

Dear Volunteers,

This week is National Volunteers’ Week and the theme for this year’s event is time to say thanks. Since we started reopening our properties in May 2020, you have contributed over one million hours to support the Trust. To put that time in context, it is the equivalent of our founder Octavia Hill, who was also a volunteer, volunteering continuously from the inception of the National Trust to the present day.

In the Midlands and the East you have collectively contributed a fifth of  all of that time, in roles at properties, at home and online. 2021 will have been difficult for many of you. You will have had periods where it has not been possible for you to safely come in to volunteer. Some of you may still be waiting to return. This will have been frustrating. It will have meant not being able to be with friends and play a part in the roles that bring you enjoyment. When you’ve been able to return there will have been a mixture of feelings of joy, apprehension, and uncertainty as you’ve come back to an organisation that has changed.  

I have always been grateful for the contribution you make, but in the last year your resilience, patience and ongoing commitment has been an inspiration. I have especially enjoyed hearing about how you have altered the way that you volunteer and supported your fellow volunteers. In the Peak District, volunteers supported other volunteers who were feeling isolated, and across many of our places volunteers contributed to local weekly newsletters by writing articles, sharing photos and poems.Volunteers at Attingham have supported the Trust from home by knitting fruit, vegetables and animals for a ‘woollen woods’ Christmas display. In Birmingham, volunteers have returned to carry out research and to train new tour guides. And ‘Tea Room Welcome’ volunteers have ensured that visitors have been able to use the restaurant at Flatford safely.  

So whether you have volunteered with us throughout the last year, for part of the year or are patiently waiting to return, I want to take time to say a massive thank you for your continued support.

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Your Committee met again on 27th and as per Secretary Dot’s email, in line with Gov’ regulations and subject to any further NT guidance, we are working to restart workdays after the next Covid relaxation planned for 12th April.

• April 18th – We have pencilled in a first small workday (max. 6 people) at Shugborough
• From May – Full programme for summer months aiming to be published by Helen

Email event details, as in the past will follow, including any H&S / Covid guidance which may vary by NT place.

…So start cleaning those boots and getting ready!!

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So instead at which worksite was it that we were socially distanced exercising instead (#1)?

…Do you need a clue?…. KINVER, of course, some of the wider new rides in the snow

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Workday leader Helen reports:

A happy, lucky band of SSNTV volunteers assembled at Kinver on a marvellous, sunny Sunday morning, ready to work with Ranger Tom.

Our mission: to help save Kinver’s important vertebrate residents, the baby adders that will come out in the Spring, from starving to death! 

This happens because when baby adders hatch, they desperately need to bask in the sun to warm up and generate enough energy to enable them to hunt and eat. Unfortunately, too much dense, scrubby undergrowth on the Heath and naughty, downright badly behaved dogs force them back into the shadows. There they stay, too frightened to come out, getting colder and colder and gradually starve to death. A very sad story. 

So SSNTV volunteers to the rescue. Their weapons: bowsaws and loppers! 

Their task: to clear little glades in the scrub of oaks and birch – to discourage errant dogs from rampaging through and still allow enough light and warmth to permeate the ground storey –  just right for baby adders. If even then, they do still get scared and look to hide, there’s enough cover close at hand! 

A wonderfully warm but socially-distanced time was had by all thanks to the Covid regulations and the moveable tumbril. Things couldn’t have got much better (except if there’d been cake!).

Thank goodness for SSNTV!  Here’s hoping we get out again soon – fingers crossed!

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